Lost in Penn Station
Teriyuki and I met at M'Lady's bar in Soho. Because he barely made eye contact with me, I chalked up his offer to purchase a second orange juice for me to boredom, rather than actual interest. I assumed his request of my phone number/e-mail was also driven by loneliness rather than lust. Either way, there was a free meal in it for me if he called, so I gave it to him.
Terry was Japanese, and had been in the US for 12 years since age 14. In that time, he had learned so little about the culture, the language or social graces in this country, he was somewhat like a Manga version of Nell.
At 6'2" no one, especially not the Japanese, believed him to actually be Japanese. There is a distinct mistrust of all things foreign in Japan, particularly by the older population. This had made Terry a "foreigner" in his native country. After some undisclosed disciplinary problems, his parents had shipped him here to attend boarding school. A lifetime of not fitting in anywhere had left him awkward and ill at ease around other humans. He was devoid of the ability or desire to mingle in social situations, with very few friends. Still, he was cute, and as he was the opposite of JewFoo, the second stupidest person I've ever dated and had recently ditched, I figured he'd be the perfect sorbet (thank you for the term, koaloha), to rid my mouth of the bad taste JewFoo had left there.
When I returned home that night, there was already a lengthy e-mail from Terry, much to my surprise. He wrote how much he had enjoyed meeting me. He told me I was "beautiful, because you have face like cat." His poor grasp on the language, coupled with his ignorance of playing hard to get certainly intrigued me. The cat comment was strange, to be sure, but I wrote it off as the result of a language barrier. I didn't know then that this was to be a recurrent theme throughout the relationship.
For a few months we dated. At first, his awkward advances could be blamed on social retardation or the cultural gap. As time went on, however, I just began to fear it was the result of something far more sinister. One of my girlfriends suggested he may prefer the company of men. If only. That, at least would have been acceptable, understandable. He, preferred the company of cats.
Terry was obsessed by cats, in a way that makes my own bird obsession pale in comparison. He had two female cats, named Amy and Kim, whom he spoke of as though they were his siblings, or lovers, or both.
His Queens apartment was sparsely furnished. The bedroom had been converted into a studio he used for painting. The displaced bed sat next to the kitchen, occupying a spot reserved for a dining room table. The most peculiar thing about the setup was the numerous cat posters, photos and calendars adorning the walls. These were the sort of images a 4 or 5 year-old girl would have hung up in her room, fluffy wide-eyed kittens posed with colorful daisies or wearing little hats.
Try though I might, I couldn't get my head around the fact that the cat thing coexisted with the amazing talent as an artist. He never painted cats, which I also found odd, since he constantly talked about them. He had a career as a designer and a fine artist, but that was in reality perhaps 40% of his makeup. The other 60 was all about cats.
His love of musical theater was another opportunity for him to indulge his feline leanings. One Saturday I found myself being held hostage in a roomful of aging queens and over-accessorized elderly Jewish women as his guest at the Winter Gardens to see Cats, quite possibly the most atrocious production ever to occupy Broadway. He had sat through this abomination of good taste and entertainment two times previously, so ignorance as to the sheer hideousness of it could not be blamed.
Second only to his bizarre cat fetish, was his amazing set of beliefs that everyone who has heard about disputes the authenticity of. I assure you, it is all true, and then some. Terry was convinced that all animals or people who were white were good and all people or animals who were black were "e-bill" or bad. This was not so much racism, as it was a strange set of OCD rules which dominated his life. (My fondness for crows had always disturbed him.) The second strange belief was primarily applied to cats. All female cats, except for black ones of course, were pretty, and all male cats were ugly, and therefore also bad. I swear he could discern the sex of a cat merely by looking at its face, which when out in public provided a non-stop classification parade of all cats into the three groups, pretty (female cat, non-black, preferably white), ugly female cats (hairless or black fur), and ugly cats (male).
The third remarkable facet in his belief system was the direct result of an utter lack of interest or understanding of American popular culture, or any culture for that matter. Slang terms he occasionally picked up at work or in school were misinterpreted and normally immediately discarded. The few that occasionally stayed with him found their way into his speech, in a comical attempt to
converse in the mode of an average American.
When describing the boy band good looks of one of our typography classmates, one night, Terry exclaimed, "He is very boner, yes?", meaning he was handsome and popular with the ladies. I tried to explain between fits of laughter that "boner" was not a term which described attractiveness, but a word meaning complete lameness or a hard-on. He nodded. "Yes like erection. It very sexy." I tried to come up with something simpler. He had a huge silver down-filled ski jacket he would wear all winter, hood up, no less. I cited this in my definition. "Your big jacket, the one that makes you look like a Studio 54 Eskimo, that jacket is boner. You look like a boner in that jacket." The meaning of this was also completely lost, and this statement seemed to please him immensely. It became known as "the boner jacket", in all subsequent references he made of it.
Although I could overlook the communication difficulties, I couldn't overlook the fact that Terry was seemingly disinterested in a relationship that involved venturing past third base. He was affectionate, and eager to make out constantly, but the progression to actual intercourse was not forthcoming. This, coupled with the fact that he was a shining example of the stereotype about Asian penis size, made me somewhat less than enthusiastic to close the deal. I'm not talking saltshaker dick like Carey the would-be mobster, but it's no secret the Japanese owe their success in all fields of industry and technology to making components cheaper and smaller.
The deal breaker for him turned out to be my acquisition of Booger Eye (Chloe at that time), a hairless Sphynx cat. Terry was beside himself with fear and disgust, unable to cope with the concept of a naked cat. All the essence of cat-ism resided in the cat hair, or the ability to pet a cat, in Terry's view. By removing the hair, you have rendered the cat useless, and non-cat. It was now something quite "e-bill", and scary. He was terrified of her. During what was to be his final visit to my apartment, he ran from room to room, muttering, "No! No! No-no-no-no-no?" in an effort to escape the e-bill powers she possessed. Chloe, eager to make the acquaintance of anyone in possession of a warm ass to sleep against followed him curiously as he paced. He refused to look at her. She was ugly, and ugly equaled bad. He told me he could not come over to my apartment again if I didn't get rid of the cat. Of course I kept the cat and ditched the Japanese Guy.
A hairless cat is indeed a freak. You'll get no argument from me. They can't go out in the sun, have to wear God-awful little sweaters in the winter, and constantly generate an oily layer of brownish munge upon themselves. This is decidedly abnormal. But a Japanese guy who wears a silver down jacket with the hood up and decorates his apartment in Early American Pedophile isn't exactly a prize, either.